GOG.com is probably not a name familiar to many Mac users, but it's been around for years selling classic and out-of-date games on Windows. The Loop has more:

GOG.com, originally Good Old Games, has been around for the last four years, and originally made a name for itself offering Windows users a way to buy and download vintage games that have long since gone out of circulation, relying on emulation and other similar technology to work. The company licenses titles from a variety of publishers and is zeroing in on 500 titles in their catalog.

Sim City 2000, as an example, runs in an self-contained emulated DOS environment with seemingly no hiccups. The company says the original 50 games are just the beginning, promising to bring more games to the Mac in the future.

Top Rated Comments

I have been buying from GOG for years. Keep in mind what you but is DRM free and you don't need a client connected to the web like Steam. GOG uses dosbox and scummvm. Both can be obtained free. If you own the CDs/floppies you can do this yourself. However GOG makes it very easy for only pennies. Plus they give you tons of extras like manuals, backgrounds, mp3s, etc. they have sales every week and have been known to offer free games from time to time. They are also part of the family that made The Withcher.

This is an emulator- though it's more akin to virtualization since DOSBox's core is bloody fast (if you want the technical details, DOSBox supports something called "dynamic recompilation" or DRC- so as far as emulation goes, it doesn't get any faster then this).

IMHO; if you want to enjoy good old DOS games- then you should really use Boxer (boxerapp.com) instead. It's a true Mac OS X port of DOSBox in that it comes with a native Cocoa UI (and a nice one at that). Boxer basically lets you install your DOS games into "boxes" that you can double-click from the Finder and automatically launch.

So I guess the end result is the same, either way you're running stuff in an emulator. The games from GOG are just pre-packaged in a custom version of DOSBox, if you go the route of Boxer instead then you get a nicer user interface and a while bunch of extras (like Roland MT-32 emulation).

-SC

GOG is using Boxer - you can check inside the package and you'll see that GOG is using a standalone version of Boxer for their games. :)

You of course can still transfer the GOG files to the core Boxer app on your machine easily enough. :)

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The Mac version was vastly superior to the DOS and Windows versions, due to using real music, instead of MIDI, so when the Eagle Screamed in the song, it really came through.

TEG

Unfortunately old Mac versions are a little more difficult to get running on modern machines even running MacOS X. :)

Which sometimes is a shame because once in awhile the Mac port would indeed be better than the original PC/Amiga version. But you can still play some really awesome games from back in the day!

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that would be sweet. i could really re-live my early days.

It will very likely be added - 50 games to start with, DOSBox and ScummVM games will probably be added over time as they make sure they have the right to sell those games for the Mac. Ensuring compatibility probably won't be too much of a problem. Even though it is not officially sold for the Mac, the version GOG sells will work on the Mac with only limited hassle, so you can still buy it and get it working without much issue (real trouble is getting the game files out of the Windows installer, but after that it is easy with Boxer).

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I have been buying from GOG for years. Keep in mind what you but is DRM free and you don't need a client connected to the web like Steam. GOG uses dosbox and scummvm. Both can be obtained free. If you own the CDs/floppies you can do this yourself. However GOG makes it very easy for only pennies. Plus they give you tons of extras like manuals, backgrounds, mp3s, etc. they have sales every week and have been known to offer free games from time to time. They are also part of the family that made The Withcher.

I second this post - I have almost entirely positive experience with GOG as well. Highly recommended people look at the catalog - even for games that aren't officially Mac compatible, you can still buy from GOG and chances are good you'll get the game working on your Mac. There are lists of games which people have gotten working on the mac and helpful forumers who will help you to do it!

This is an emulator- though it's more akin to virtualization since DOSBox's core is bloody fast (if you want the technical details, DOSBox supports something called "dynamic recompilation" or DRC- so as far as emulation goes, it doesn't get any faster then this).

IMHO; if you want to enjoy good old DOS games- then you should really use Boxer (boxerapp.com) instead. It's a true Mac OS X port of DOSBox in that it comes with a native Cocoa UI (and a nice one at that). Boxer basically lets you install your DOS games into "boxes" that you can double-click from the Finder and automatically launch.

So I guess the end result is the same, either way you're running stuff in an emulator. The games from GOG are just pre-packaged in a custom version of DOSBox, if you go the route of Boxer instead then you get a nicer user interface and a while bunch of extras (like Roland MT-32 emulation).

Oddly enough, my girlfriend was looking to play Theme Hospital yesterday, I wondered if GOG did any Mac games so logged in and they had it! Then I found out that it was cheap because they had just launched it!

Anyway, she played Theme Hospital for like 8 hours yesterday and it ran fine!

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